Oration 45 1 part 1/2

"I will stand upon my watch," says the marvelous Habakkuk;

and I too will take my stand with him today, by the authority and contemplation granted me by the Spirit; and I will look out and see what shall be shown, and what shall be spoken to me.

And I stood, and I looked out;

and behold, a man mounted upon the clouds, and he was exceedingly high;

and his appearance was as the appearance of an angel;

and his robe was as the radiance of darting lightning;

and he lifted up his hand toward the east, and cried with a loud voice.

His voice was as the voice of a trumpet;

and round about him was as a multitude of the heavenly host, and he said:

"Today is salvation come to the world, both to all that is seen and all that is unseen.

Christ is risen from the dead; rise with him.

Christ has returned to himself; return also to yourselves.

Christ is freed from the tombs; be freed from the bonds of sin.

The gates of Hades are opened, and death is destroyed, and the old Adam is put away, and the new is being made complete;

if anyone is a new creation in Christ, be renewed."

And they sang praises, even as before, when Christ appeared to us through his birth below: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

With them I too utter these things among you;

and would that I might receive a voice worthy of the angelic dignity, one that should resound to all the ends of the earth.

The Pascha of the Lord, the Pascha! And again I will say, the Pascha, in honor of the Trinity.

This is for us the feast of feasts, and the festival of festivals, surpassing all others—not only the human and earthbound, but even those of Christ himself and celebrated for him—as far as the sun surpasses the stars.

Beautiful indeed was yesterday's bearing of lights and illumination, which we arranged both privately and publicly, when nearly every race of men and almost every rank lit up the night with lavish fire—an image of the great Light: both that Light which the heaven kindles on high like a beacon, lighting the whole world with its own beauties, and that supernal Light which is in the angels, the first luminous nature after the First, since from thence it is fed; and that which is in the Trinity, from which all light has its being, parted and yet honored, while being parted, from the undivided Light.

But more beautiful is today, and more resplendent;

inasmuch as yesterday the light was the forerunner of the great Light's rising, and a kind of pre-festal gladness;

but today we celebrate the Resurrection itself, no longer hoped for, but now already accomplished, and gathering the whole world to itself.

Let each one, then, bring forth at this season some fruit, and offer a festal gift, whether small or great, of the things spiritual and dear to God, according as each has of power.

For of worthy praise even the angels could scarcely attain—they who are first, and intellectual, and pure, and beholders and witnesses of the glory above;

if indeed even for these the whole of hymnody is attainable.

But we will bring an offering of speech, the fairest and most precious of all we have, especially since we hymn the Word, in return for the benefit done to our rational nature.

For I cannot endure, when offering up words concerning the great Sacrifice and the greatest of days, not to run back to God, and to make from him the beginning.

And cleanse for me both mind and hearing and understanding, all you who delight in such things (since the discourse is of God, and is itself divine), that you may go away having truly feasted on the things that are not emptied.

And let it be at once most full and most concise, so as neither to grieve by deficiency, nor to be wearisome through surfeit.

God always was, and is, and shall be;

or rather, he always is. For "was" and "shall be" are fragments of our time and of fleeting nature;

but he who ever is, names himself thus when giving his oracle to Moses on the mountain.

For gathering up the whole of being in himself, he possesses it, with neither beginning nor end, like some boundless and limitless sea of essence, overflowing all conception both of time and of nature;

sketched out by the mind alone, and even by this most dimly and scantily, not from the things that pertain to himself, but from the things round about him, as one impression is gathered from another into a single representation of the truth, which flees before it is grasped and slips away before it is conceived;

shining round about our governing faculty—even when it is purified—as much as the swiftness of unresting lightning shines about our sight;

in order, as it seems to me, that by what can be grasped he may draw us to himself (for what is wholly ungraspable is also beyond hope and beyond attempt),

and by what is ungraspable he may be wondered at;

and being wondered at, he may be the more longed for;

and being longed for, he may purify; and purifying, he may make us godlike;

and to such as have become so, as now to his own kin he may hold converse (the discourse here ventures something bold)—

God being united to gods, and made known to them;

and perhaps to such a degree as he already knows those who are known by him.

Infinite, then, is the Divine, and hard to contemplate;

and this alone of him is wholly comprehensible—his incomprehensibility.

And if anyone thinks that, because he is of a simple nature, he is either wholly ungraspable or completely graspable, let us inquire:

what is it, being of a simple nature, that he is? Let us seek it out.

For this surely is not his nature—this simplicity—

if indeed not even for composite things is mere being identical with being composite.

And when one applies the term to what is below, and what follows, he is immortal and imperishable;

and when one comprehends the whole, he is eternal.

For eternity is neither time, nor any part of time;

but what time is to us—measured by the course of the sun—that eternity is to things everlasting: a kind of temporal-like extent coextensive with existing things, like some movement and interval reckoned with being.

Let this much be my philosophizing concerning God for the present.

For there is no occasion to go beyond these things, since what lies before us is not theology, but economy.

And when I say "God," I mean Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit;

the Godhead being neither poured out beyond these, lest we introduce a populace of gods,

nor confined within fewer than these, lest we be condemned to a poverty of Godhead—either Judaizing on account of the monarchy, or Hellenizing on account of the abundance.

For the evil is alike in both, even though it be found in opposite extremes.

Thus, then, are the Holy of Holies, which are veiled even with the Seraphim, and glorified with three sanctifications converging into one lordship and Godhead;

which also has been philosophized most beautifully and most loftily by another of those before us.

But since it did not suffice for the Goodness to be moved only by the contemplation of itself, but the Good had to be poured forth and to journey outward, so that more might be the objects of its beneficence (for this belonged to the highest Goodness),

first he conceives the angelic and heavenly powers;

and the conception was a work, fulfilled by the Word and perfected by the Spirit.

And thus there came into being second splendors, ministers of the first Splendor—whether one is to suppose them intellectual spirits, or fire as it were immaterial and incorporeal, or some other nature as near as possible to those just named.

I would indeed say that they are unmoved toward evil, and have only the movement toward the good, inasmuch as they are about God, and are illumined first from God (for the things here below have a second illumination).

But these too, I am constrained to call movable, by reason of him who through his splendor was the Morning-star (Lucifer), but through his self-exaltation both became and is called darkness; and the apostate powers under him, who are makers of evil by their flight from the good, and procurers of it for us.

Thus, then, and for these reasons, the intelligible world came into being for him—at least so far as I, weighing great things in a brief discourse, may philosophize concerning them.

And since the first things were good in his sight, he conceives a second world, material and visible;

and this is the system and compound made up of heaven, and earth, and the things between them;

praiseworthy for the good nature of each part, but yet more worthy of praise for the well-fitted harmony and concord of all together, each thing being rightly disposed toward another, and all toward all, to the completion of one world;

that he might show himself able to bring into being not only a nature akin to himself, but also one altogether foreign to him.

For akin to the Godhead are the intellectual natures, graspable by mind alone;

but altogether foreign are all those that fall under sense-perception;

and still farther removed than these are all that are utterly soulless and motionless.

Now mind, then, and sense-perception, thus distinguished from one another, stood within their own bounds, and bore within themselves the majesty of the creating Word, silent praisers of his mighty work, and far-sounding heralds.

But there was not yet a blending of the two, nor any mixture of opposites—the token of a greater wisdom and of lavishness concerning natures;

nor was the whole wealth of the Goodness made known.

This, then, the Artificer-Word, willing to display, fashions one living being out of both—I mean of the invisible and the visible nature—namely, man;

and taking the body from matter already pre-existing, but putting in from himself the breath (which the Scripture knows as the intellectual soul and the image of God), he sets him upon the earth as a kind of second world, great in his littleness, another angel, a worshipper of mixed nature, a beholder of the visible creation, an initiate of the intelligible, a king over the things on earth, but ruled from above, earthly and heavenly, temporal and immortal, visible and intellectual, midway between greatness and lowliness, the same being spirit and flesh:

spirit on account of grace, flesh on account of pride;

the one, that he might abide and glorify his Benefactor;

the other, that he might suffer, and suffering be reminded and instructed, when he grows ambitious because of his greatness;

a living being here dispensed, and removed elsewhere, and—as the consummation of the mystery—deified by his inclining toward God.

For to this, in my view, the moderate light of the truth here leads: to behold the splendor of God, and to undergo a suffering worthy of him who both bound us together, and shall loose us, and shall again bind us more loftily.

Him God placed in Paradise—whatever this Paradise was—honoring him with free will, that the good might belong to the one who chose it no less than to the one who supplied the seeds; a tiller of immortal plants, of divine thoughts perhaps, both the simpler and the more perfect; naked in his simplicity, and in a life without artifice, and apart from every covering and screen;

for such it was fitting that the man of the beginning should be.

And he gives a law, as material for his free will.

And the law was a commandment: of which plants he might partake, and which he should not touch.

And this was the tree of knowledge—neither planted evilly from the beginning, nor forbidden out of envy (let not the fighters against God send their tongues thither, nor imitate the serpent);

but it was good if partaken of in due season (for the plant was contemplation, as I contemplate it, upon which it is safe for those more perfect in their habit alone to enter, but not good for those who are still simpler and more greedy in their desire);

just as neither is solid food profitable for those who are still tender and in need of milk.

But when, through the envy of the devil and the assault of the woman—which she suffered, as the more tender, and which she brought on, as the more persuasive (alas for my weakness!

for the forefather's weakness is mine)—he forgot the commandment given to him, and was overcome by the bitter taste;

he becomes an exile from God on account of his evil, and is clothed with garments of skin—perhaps the coarser flesh, both mortal and resistant;

and this first he knows—his own shame—and hides himself from God.

Yet even here he gains something: death, and the cutting short of sin, that the evil might not be immortal.

And the punishment becomes loving-kindness.

For thus, I am persuaded, God chastises.

And having first been disciplined by many means, in return for his many sins—of which the root of evil sprouted, according to diverse causes and times—by word, by law, by prophets, by benefits, by threats, by plagues, by waters, by conflagrations, by wars, by victories, by defeats, by signs from heaven, by signs from the air, from the earth, from the sea; by men, cities, nations, by unexpected reversals—by all of which the aim was that evil might be rubbed out:

in the end, a stronger remedy was needed for the more grievous maladies—mutual slaughters, adulteries, perjuries, unnatural lusts of men, and that last and first of all evils, idolatry, and the transferring of worship from the Maker to the creatures.

These, since they needed a greater help, also obtained one.

And this was the very Word of God himself: the pre-eternal, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the incorporeal, the Beginning from the Beginning, the Light from the Light, the Fount of life and immortality, the impress of the archetype, the unmoving seal, the unchanging image, the Father's definition and word—who comes to his own image, and bears flesh for the flesh's sake, and is mingled with an intellectual soul for my soul's sake, cleansing like by like;

and becomes in all things man, save sin;

conceived indeed of the Virgin, who was purified beforehand in both soul and flesh by the Spirit (for it was needful both that childbearing be honored, and that virginity be yet more honored), but coming forth as God with that which he had assumed, one out of two opposites, flesh and spirit—of which the one deified, and the other was deified.

And the Uncreated is created;

and the Uncontainable is contained, through the medium of an intellectual soul mediating between the Godhead and the grossness of flesh;

and he who enriches becomes poor;

for he becomes poor in my flesh, that I might become rich in his Godhead.

For he empties himself of his own glory for a little while, that I might partake of his fullness.

What is the wealth of the Goodness? What is this mystery concerning me? I partook of the image, and I did not keep it;

he partakes of my flesh, both that he might save the image, and make the flesh immortal.

Inasmuch as then he imparted of the better, but now partakes of the worse.

This is more godlike than the former;

this, to those who have understanding, is more lofty.

"But what is this to us?" perhaps one of the more festive and ardent might say. "Spur the colt round the turning-post;

philosophize for us the things of the feast, and the matters over which we preside today."

This indeed I will do, even if I began a little from on high, since both the discourse and the longing have so constrained me.

And it is perhaps not amiss, for the lovers of learning and of the beautiful, to treat briefly of the very name of the Pascha.

For this would be no mean addition to your hearing.

This Pascha, the great and venerable one, is called Phaska by the Hebrews, according to their tongue;

and the word signifies "passing over";

historically, on account of the flight and migration out of Egypt toward the land of Canaan;

but spiritually, on account of the advance and ascent from the things below toward the things above, and toward the land of promise.

But just as we find to have happened in many places of the Scripture—that certain of the names have been altered from the more obscure to the clearer, or from the more rustic to the more seemly—this also we have observed here.

By this alteration, they have called the day "Pascha."

And custom, having taken up the word, made it the stronger, as the hearing of the multitude flocked to it as to the more pious term.

Now that the whole law is a shadow of the things to come and of things conceived by the mind, the divine Apostle declared before us.

And God, who before this had given his oracle to Moses, when he was legislating concerning these matters:

"See," he says, "that you make all things according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain";

showing the things visible to be a sketch and foredrawing of the invisible.

And I am persuaded that none of these things was ordained at random, nor irrationally, nor in a groveling way, nor unworthily of God's legislation and of Moses' ministry;

even though it is hard, for each of the shadows, to discover its contemplation, descending into the minutest detail—both whatever has been ordained concerning the tabernacle itself, and its measurements, and its materials, and the Levites and ministers who bore these things, and whatever was legislated concerning sacrifices, and purifications, and offerings;

and that these are contemplable only by those who are like Moses in virtue, or who come as near as possible to his instruction.

Since even on the mountain itself God appears to men—on the one hand himself descending from his own watchtower, on the other hand raising us up from our lowliness below—that the Uncontainable might be contained, at least moderately, by a mortal nature, and so far as is safe.

For it is not otherwise possible, for the grossness of a mind enclosed in a material and fettered body, to come within the apprehension of God, unless it be helped.

At that time, then, not all appear to have been deemed worthy of the same rank and station;

but one of one, and another of another—each, I think, in proportion to his own purification;

while others were altogether driven away, and permitted only to hear the voice from above—all such as were beastlike in their character, and unworthy of the divine mysteries.

But we, holding the middle place between those altogether grosser in mind, and those exceedingly contemplative and elevated—that we may neither remain wholly idle and motionless, nor be more meddlesome than we ought, and so fall away from and become estranged to the things set before us (for the one is in a way Jewish and lowly, the other is the work of a dream-interpreter, and both alike are condemned)—

thus we will discourse concerning these things, according to what is attainable for us, and not too outlandish, nor ridiculous to the many.

For we hold that, since we had fallen from sin at the beginning, and been beguiled by pleasure all the way to idolatry and the shedding of unlawful blood, it was needful that we be recalled again, and brought back to our ancient state, through the tender mercies of God our Father, who could not endure that so great a work of his own hand—man—should be brought to ruin.

How then was he to be refashioned, and what was to come about? The severe kind of healing was rejected, as being neither able to persuade, nor able to strike home, because of the inveteracy bred by time; but it was to be dispensed by the gentle and kindly mode of treatment, toward his restoration.

For a crooked sapling would not endure a sudden bending and the violence of a straightening hand (for it would more quickly be broken than set straight), nor would a hot and over-aged horse endure the tyranny of the bit, apart from some coaxing and clucking of the tongue.

And so he concedes a little at the beginning, that he might receive the greater.

He permits the sacrifices for a time, that he might establish God;

then, when the time came, that he might also abolish the sacrifices, wisely changing us by gradual subtractions, and leading us over to the Gospel when we had already been trained toward obedience.

Thus, then, and for these reasons, the written law came in, gathering us into Christ; and this is the rationale of the sacrifices, as my reasoning holds.

But that you may not be ignorant of the depth of the wisdom, and the riches of his unsearchable judgments, neither did he leave even these wholly unhallowed, nor without effect, nor advancing only to mere blood;

they have been intermingled with the legal sacrifices, as a purification not of a small part of the inhabited world, nor for a little while, but of the whole world and one that endures forever.

For such is the victim slain for us: a garment of incorruption, both being it and being called it.

And he is perfect, not only on account of the Godhead, than which nothing is more perfect, but also on account of that which was assumed, which was anointed with Godhead, and became the very thing that anointed it, and—I make bold to say—coequal with God.

And male, as offered for Adam—or rather, the stronger for the strong, since the first fell under sin—and especially as bearing in himself nothing female, nothing unmanly;

but burst forth by force from virginal and maternal bonds, in great authority, and was born male of the prophetess, as Isaiah brings the good tidings.

And of a year old (perfect), as the Sun of righteousness, either setting out from thence, or circumscribed by the visible, and returning into himself;

and blessed with the crown of goodness, and on every side equal to himself and like himself;

and not only this, but also as giving life to the circle of the virtues, which are gently intermingled and blended with one another, by the law of friendship and order.

And spotless and unalloyed, as the healer of blemishes, and of the defects and defilements that come from evil.

For even though he took up our sins and bore our diseases, yet he himself suffered nothing of the things needing healing.

For he was tempted in all points according to our likeness, yet without sin.

For he that pursued the Light which shines in the darkness did not overtake it.

What more? The month is brought in as the first—or rather, the beginning of months;

whether it was such among the Hebrews from the beginning, or whether it became so afterward from this point, and received its being first from the mystery.

For this number is most complete of numbers: it is the first perfect unit composed of units, and generative of perfection.

And it is chosen, not from the lambs only, but also from the worse kind, and from the left hand of the goats; because he is sacrificed not for the righteous only, but also for sinners;

and perhaps for these even more, inasmuch as we have the greater need of his loving-kindness.

And it is no wonder, if the lamb is sought above all by each household, but if not, then also by households of kinsmen joined together, contributing on account of poverty;

since it is best, above all, that each one himself be sufficient for himself unto perfecting, and offer a living, holy sacrifice to the God who calls, being consecrated always and in all things;

but if not, then to make use of fellow-workers to this end—those who are of like kind and like manner in virtue.

For this is what it seems to me to mean: to share, if there be need, with those nearest to the sacrifice.

Hence the sacred Night, the antagonist of this night of the present diffused life—the night in which the primal darkness is dissolved, and all things come into light, and order, and form, and the former disarray takes on adornment.

Hence we flee Egypt—gloomy and persecuting sin—and Pharaoh the unseen tyrant, and the bitter taskmasters, being transferred to the world above;

and we are freed from the clay and the brick-making, and from the chaff-like and treacherous constitution of this our flesh—a flesh that on the part of the many is held captive even to the extent of chaff-like reasonings.

Hence the lamb is slain, and there are sealed with the precious blood both deed and word—that is to say, habit and activity—the doorposts of our doors; I mean, of the movements and dogmas of the mind, rightly opened and shut by contemplation, since there is some measure even to our apprehensions.

Hence the last and heaviest plague upon the persecutors, and one truly worthy of the night:

the firstborn of one's own reasonings and deeds—Egypt (which is also called by the Scripture the Chaldean seed cast out, and the Babylonian infants dashed against the rock and destroyed)—and all things are full of clamor and outcry for the Egyptians;

and from us at that time the destroyer of those firstborn shall withdraw, out of reverence and fear of the anointing.

Hence the removal of the leaven for seven days (for this is the most mystical of numbers, and corresponds to this world)—the removal of the old and sour wickedness (not of that which makes bread and gives life);

that we may eat no Egyptian batch of dough, nor any remnant of Pharisaic and godless teaching.

But by us the lamb shall be eaten;

and that toward evening, because at the consummation of the ages came the Passion of Christ;

since also he communicates the mystery to his disciples in the evening, dissolving the darkness of sin.

And not boiled, but roasted;

so that our discourse may have in it nothing unexamined, nor watery, nor easily dissolved, but may be wholly compacted and firm, and tested by the purifying fire, and free of all that is gross, and without superfluity; and that we may be helped by the good coals which kindle and cleanse our reasoning faculty—coals from him who came to cast fire upon the earth, the fire that consumes wicked habits, and hastens its own kindling.

So then, as much of the discourse as is fleshly and nourishing shall be eaten and consumed, together with the inward parts and the hidden things of the mind, and shall be given over to spiritual digestion, even to head and feet—that is, to the first contemplations concerning the Godhead, and the last considerations concerning the Incarnation.

But we will carry out nothing, nor leave anything until the morning;

because most of our mysteries are not to be carried out to those without, nor is there any purification beyond this night, and delay is not praiseworthy for those who partake of the Word.

For just as it is good, and dear to God, not to let anger continue through the day, but to dissolve it before sunset—both in a temporal and in an anagogical sense (for it is not safe that the Sun of righteousness should set upon us while we are angry)—

so likewise such food is not to be kept through the night, nor laid aside for the next day.

But as much as is bony and uneatable, and hard for us to contemplate, shall not even be broken in pieces, being wrongly divided and conceived (for I forbear to say that, according to the history, not a bone of Jesus was broken, even though death was hastened by the crucifiers on account of the Sabbath);

nor shall it be cast away and dragged about;

lest the holy things be given to the dogs and to the evil tearers of the Word, just as neither the bright and pearl-like part of the Word is to be given to the swine;

but it shall be consumed by fire—by that very Spirit which searches out and knows even the whole burnt offerings, whereby they are refined and preserved, not destroyed in waters, nor scattered as seed;

just as was the head of the calf, devised by Moses for Israel, unto the reproach of their hardness.

And it is fitting not to pass over even the manner of the eating, since not even the law, down to this detail, neglects to labor at the contemplation in the letter.

For we shall consume the victim in haste, eating it with unleavened bread upon bitter herbs, with our loins girded, and our sandals on our feet, and leaning, as elders do, upon a staff.

In haste, indeed, that we may not suffer what that Lot was forbidden by the commandment;

let us not look round about us, let us not stand still in all the surrounding region;

let us be saved unto the mountain, lest we be swept away with the Sodomite and alien fire, nor be fixed into a pillar of salt by turning back to the worse—which is the work of delay.

And upon bitter herbs, on account of the bitterness of the life according to God, which is also steep, especially for beginners, and higher than pleasures.

For even though the new yoke be kindly, and the burden light, as you hear,

yet this is because of the hope and the recompense, which is far more abundant than the suffering here.

Whereas the law restrains the consummations of sins, we are called to account even for the causes, as though almost for the deeds themselves.

"You shall not commit adultery," says the law;

but you—you shall not even lust, inflaming the passion by a curious and labored gaze.

"You shall not kill," says the law; but you—you shall not even strike back, but shall offer yourself to the one who strikes.

How much more philosophic are these than those!

"You shall not forswear yourself," that one says;

but you—you shall not swear at all to begin with, neither by what is less nor by what is greater, since the oath is the begetter of perjury.

"You shall not join house to house," says that one, "and field to field," oppressing the poor;

but you—you shall put away even what was justly acquired, readily, and shall strip yourself bare for the poor, that you may bear the cross lightly, and may grow rich in the things unseen.

Now the loins—for the irrational creatures, let them be loose and unbound;

for they have no reason to master their pleasures;

not yet do I say that even they know a limit to their natural movement;

but in you let the lustful and neighing part be restrained by a girdle and by temperance (as the divine Scripture says, deriding the shamefulness of the passion), that you may eat the Pascha in purity, having mortified your members which are upon the earth, and imitating the girdle of John—the man of the desert, the forerunner, and the great herald of the truth.

I know also another girdle—I mean the soldierly and manly one—after which certain men of Syria are called Light-girt and Single-girt;

after which also God, giving his oracle to Job, says: